


Statement #0080111 - Clockwork

by arcanalexica



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, No Spoilers, Original Character(s), Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Self-Mutilation, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanalexica/pseuds/arcanalexica
Summary: Statement of something which was once James Faire regarding a mysterious shipment. Original statement given November 1st, 2008. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Statement #0080111 - Clockwork

I do not have a name-- not really. For as long as I have been me, I’ve never had a name. But I was James Faire before I was me, still bound by the chains of flesh, bone, and a beating red heart. Nothing he’s ever done, nor anything _you_ will ever do, Archivist, will parallel the utter euphoria of icy bronze. Nothing he’s ever done has ever mattered or brought him any joy, until at last he had reached the apotheosis of the Shaper of Bronze’s grand, ticking designs. He had human skin and human burdens, but everything he did, as all human designs, failed and rendered itself completely futile; any emotional attachment he had liquified into a pool of bubbling iron and copper from which I would emerge ticking and executing the fierce edict of the Shaper.

I remember the day that my peace melted and my happiness in the pained monotony of my nine-to-five life was abruptly and viciously torn from me, when I was still considering myself as James Faire. I remember the day the box came, ceaselessly ticking, towards whatever mechanical goal its crafters had meant for it to achieve. Percy Leah is a name that burns with fury in my now-whirring head, the owner of the small retail company where I once was employed as an accountant. The work was mind-numbingly tedious, but it kept me with steady, periodic income that helped me afford the rent on my house. Then, of course, the company began to tank in the recession, and the layoffs began. I wasn’t the first to go, so I maintained a sense of security to the end, steeled by my absolute devotion to the company. A few of my acquaintances, some people I would never even have cared about had we not fostered somewhat of a sense of camaraderie amidst the daily routine, cut ties with me after they were lost in the first or second wave of the firings, whether from jealousy or simply not being obligated to engage with me five days a week. Personally, I had never stressed about the layoffs, assuming my work was sufficient enough to be worth keeping around. Nothing nagged at me, rotting my will or feeding my fears, unlike what was happening with some of my coworkers.

I was summoned to Leah’s office one muggy and overcast morning by a weary assistant on his way to the breakroom. Even in the moments leading up to the event that sparked my ascension, even while walking towards his office a few doors down from accounting, I presumed nothing would change; my job would stay. I thrived under that ignorant confidence. Some may describe it as foolish, but that attitude was simply the intent of the Shaper, delicately molding each intricacy of my rise to the very moment of my transfusion and transformation. That very attitude was the ideal temperament for the gears to twirl into action and bring me truly alive.

I finished the day as normal after receiving news of my unemployment, dreading having to tell my girlfriend at the time, Susanne, about the severance. My thoughts were drifting until at last I came through the front door and anxiously read a book until she came home. We had a somber, peaceful discussion, but discontentment burbled up through the cracks in her voice. No matter how she tried to lord over her feelings and keep herself from expressing the concern she clearly felt, I could feel our looming separation. I knew she thought I was too passive about everything, and that my oft-repeated mantra, _“Everything will be okay_ _in the end_ ,” which I had used to comfort both her and myself, simply wasn’t cutting it. While I wanted to let things take their course, she wanted me to fight for my job. But that wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all; I know now that there are certain… guaranteed inevitabilities. 

I left her to stew in her feelings, to let it nip at her until she decided on a course of action while I went to go smoke a cigarette out on my porch. Seeing a poorly-built cardboard package carelessly bound in duct tape on my doorstep came as a bit of a surprise, enough for me to forget about smoking and take the box inside. There aren’t many friends or family that I have left living outside of my town who would care enough to send me anything, nor do I ship anything to my house. The thing was unexpectedly heavy, whatever inside weighing about twenty pounds. I could feel the box tremble like beats to a melody, noticeably shaking on each of its intervals. 

Susanne was cooking something on the stove when I put the box on our cracking marble counters, setting it down gently to avoid further fracturing the countertops. Our landlord said it would be fine, but I erred on the side of caution with them anyways. Not that would matter, of course. Losing half of our income would mean we would inevitably need to move out; my girlfriend and I both knew it, but I didn’t care enough and she didn’t think to speak up about it. 

I took a step back and scrutinized the box, taking in the creased cardboard and ugly gray tape wrapping around it, when Susanne asked what it was. I said I had no idea, and after she poked and shuffled around whatever sizzled in her frying pan with a spatula, she asked who it was from. I then realized the package had no markings whatsoever that would indicate who or where it came from or that it would be delivered here. It was just here, probably delivered by hand. Susanne told me not to open it, mumbling something about murderers or bombs, and I agreed. I eventually stopped thinking about the box, instead beginning to read while she ate her grilled cheese. She finished it fairly quickly and said she was going to go to sleep, so I said good night and sat alone and quiet in the kitchen. 

Once she left the room, the stillness in the air was audibly punctuated with a loud, repeating, clocklike tick. The words I tried to read on the page in front of me jolted in a blur each time I heard the noise, that melodic noise, only growing more and more shaky as my attention slowly shifted towards the package’s song of beating clockwork. I actively tried to focus on the words, but that had the opposite effect, so I closed the book and walked over to the box. The ticking spoke to me; I began to hear hushed lyrics in the clockwork song, and I found comfort simply staring at the box and immersing myself in the melody. 

I was suddenly torn back to reality when I realized that the room was now dark, the sun having set. For a moment, I was disoriented before my vision refocused on the nearby oven’s digital clock-- half an hour had passed-- and then back on the box. I needed to know what was inside it. I pulled a knife from its nearby block and held its pointed tip at the box’s seam, masked by tape, when I recalled Susanne’s worries. It was best not to go against her, I thought, so I left the knife and went to bed, the prospect of losing her and the house drifting on my mind.

The next day gave life to some of those concerns. Over breakfast, Susanne tried to push me into arguing with my old boss about getting my job back. I tried to change the subject, but she would always bring it back around to my employment. She lost all subtlety in her emotions, and I tried to tell her off, but that only casted her stress and anxiety into a more direct sort of anger. As we argued, I began to sorely miss the package’s ticking; I missed its song and the quieted words it told me, the whispers of the Shaper of Bronze and springs and cogs. It was something stable, unlike the whirlwind of emotions I was faced. I felt almost nothing as Susanne threw an impassioned speech at me, finally notiong my indifference, telling me off, and deciding she was going to leave. If that was how it would be, I thought, then fine, that was how it was _meant_ to be. Not like I didn’t know it was coming.

It took her less than an hour to pack up everything she wanted and even less time to storm out of the house with her car keys and drive off to wherever she would end up. I never saw her again. I never wanted to see her again, and I never will see her again. I had the box, and now _I_ have something better. I felt no concern at all as I picked up the knife, still left next to it from the night before, and cut into it as effortlessly as cutting into water. I felt no concern when I threw back the package’s cardboard wings, peering inside to see a gleaming bronze heart, something pulled from an anatomy textbook and forged by an expert metallurgist, sitting inside a pool of still, gold nectar-like fluid. The Heart thrummed with life on each of its ticks, the mass of metal pulsating within the box’s confines. I knew deep in my own heart that it was meant for me. 

I lifted it out of its box and onto the counter. Some liquid gold pooled beneath it and slowly ran off the counter, dripping onto the tiled floor below. Throughout the day, while passing through the kitchen for some food or just to check on the Heart, I would tune into its clockwork song. I hadn’t realized how burdened I felt until it released me from that which tethered me to the world; the stress of losing my job, my house, and my girlfriend-- all of it-- I no longer felt its pain. At that point, I had become one with the heart in all aspects but physical.

Each passing night, I felt our strange bond grow, the song growing louder and louder until I could no longer stand to be separated from it at all. Something bigger than myself began to force my hand, and I found myself moving throughout my house, doing various menial tasks before I was even consciously aware of it. I always found myself caught in strange places, but I cherished what I presumed to be the Shaper making me its instrument. One night, as I was dozing off, I heard a clock’s chime come from the kitchen. When I came to my senses through the Shaper puppeteering me, I found myself in front of the heart, holding the same knife I used to open the box, pointed inwards towards my heart. It was obvious what I had to do, and I did it without a qualm.

I pierced my chest. There was a moment of shock, passing a few seconds later when I felt my nerves set alight with pain. The cold steel of the knife which I felt through my ribs was soon warmed by the blood pouring from the wound, clinging to my shirt, now discolored with an ever-growing spot of crimson. I continued to saw back and forth and around my heart, stifling back a scream. At some point I felt shame for the fleeting thought of stopping, even just for a moment, but the suffering was briefly quelled whenever I thought of icy metal and beating bronze inside me. From my carved chest, I plucked out my heart, a pulpy mass of muscle pulsating in unison with its nearby clockwork counterpart, and set it aside next to the box.

I felt a deep cold come over me as I fought back a shiver. My body was growing whiter with the rapid blood loss. It felt proper to thank that which the Heart sung of, the Shaper of Bronze, for its blessing, letting me stay alive long enough to wrap a pale hand around the cold, ticking clockwork heart, shoving it inside my chest roughly where its organic counterpart once was. That sent a sudden, intense chill through what was left of my blood and I let myself fall to the floor. I reached towards the sky as if I were worshipping the Shaper and a tired smile spread across my face as, at last, I saw a wave of bronze spread up and through my veins, staining them a hue that was shared with the pool of gold liquid that still drenched the Heart’s box and puddled on my counter. Any shreds of emotional attachment I had to my old life sloughed off along with my skin, a layer of burning, molten bronze-steel alloy oozing into where it once was and hardening into a cold layer of metal. 

I picked myself off the ground with a new weight, the weight of heavy metal. At long last, I was me. I was-- I _am_ the Clockwork Heart. 

_Statement ends._

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